State At A Glance

March 17, 2007

AREAWIDE -- The BBC will show an advanced screening of ``A Slave's Story,'' its documentary film about the life of Venture Smith, a freed slave turned successful East Haddam businessman Sunday at the Beecher House Society's annual meeting. Many of Smith's descendants plan to attend the screening. The documentary is to be released in England in the spring to mark the 200th anniversary of the end of the British slave trade.

BLOOMFIELD -- A judge has ordered the town to pay more than $1.6 million to Supreme Industries Inc., the company that built the Wintonbury Hills Golf Course. The judge ruled the town wrongfully fired the Harwinton contractor before the project was finished. The damages are more than twice the amount the company sought when it sued the town. Town Manager Louie Chapman Jr. said Bloomfield plans to appeal the decision.

EAST HARTFORD -- The town council's majority leader says ``the [school] board needs a new direction,'' and plans to run for the board. ``I'm just tired of the chaos,'' Mary Alice Dwyer-Hughes said. `` ... You need things shaken up.'' The school district has been heavily criticized for approving raises for some central office employees and then for a scandal that led to the resignation of the high school principal. The board's chairwoman said she was surprised by Dwyer-Hughes' decision, which comes a week after the mayor asked the school superintendent to resign.

OLD SAYBROOK -- Plans to open a group home for five teenage boys on Anchorage Lane have drawn scrutiny from neighbors and state Rep. Marilyn Giuliano, who said she does not consider the home's opening a done deal. Giuliano, a psychologist, said her concerns are not the typical not-in-my-backyard objections. She questions the safety of the location, which is near the waterfront and outside the center of town. Barry Simon, executive director of Gilead Community Services, said the mental health agency selected the site for many of the same reasons residents would choose to live there.

PLAINVILLE -- Voters have twice refused to authorize additional funding for renovating and expanding Toffolon School. But town officials are still trying to find some way of getting more funding for the project. This week, they told architects to juggle numbers in the hope of finding something that voters might like.

SOUTH WINDSOR -- The town this week approved plans for a shopping plaza at Buckland Road and Deming Street, but the site's owner and developers say they will continue with a lawsuit against the planning and zoning commission. The lawsuit by the owner, Calvary Church of the Assemblies of God, and developers Margaret Development LLC and Deming Plaza LLC, is appealing a commission decision not to alter zoning rules that would allow the construction of a supermarket on the property.

WEST HARTFORD -- Town council member Barbara Carpenter, a kindergarten teacher at Braeburn Elementary School, said she will run for president of the local teachers union. If she wins the post in April, she says she will step down from the council to avoid a conflict of interest.